Optical control of genome editing

The group of Moritoshi Sato (University of Tokyo) reported a novel, photoactivatable Cas9 variant (paCas9) for spatiotemporally regulated genome editing. Researchers made a split Cas9, with fragments fused to 'Magnet' dimerization domains. Upon blue light, Magnet domains bring together Cas9 components and reconstitute genome editing activity. The system is a little bit less effective than wtCas9, but it's activation is reversible and could be controlled in space. The authors provided evidence that the system works also with Cas9-nicakse and also with dead Cas9 (dCas9) for reversible transcriptional inhibition. The current constructs are small enough to be cloned into AAV. It represents an alternative to doxycycline regulated or rapamyicin-inducible Cas9 systems. Check out the paper here: http://goo.gl/vw5H1Z